He dresses the little
fairy in pink today, a soft cherry-blossom color that sets off the
bloody red of her lips and eyes. Her hair he catches up in little
buns on each side of her head. She looks in the mirror and giggles a
little, pleased at her own reflection. "Quite nice, my dear,"
he says, and she half-climbs, half-flutters to his shoulder.

The panther in the
middle of the carpet only twitches his tail, but he does it in a way
that speaks volumes. He also wears a cherry-blossom collar, and is
not happy about it, although it looks nice against the black satin of
his fur.

"Shall we have
tea?" he says.

(there are a lot of
things he never wants to remember.)

His world is this:
three rooms, the panther and the fairy. He makes clothes for the
fairy and collars for the panther and sometimes he remembers food and
sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes the panther will put one paw on his
knee and look at him with a sad expression that makes him get up very
quickly and do something else. He talks quickly about cleaning and
dusting and sewing. Even the fairy looks sad sometimes. He doesn't
understand it.

There used to be
windows in his rooms but they were blocked off and he painted
pictures over them a long time ago. Not pictures of anything in
particular, although sometimes he wakes up and there are pictures of
people he doesn't know instead of the butterflies and flowers and
distant hills he thought he painted. He has to paint over the new
pictures -- a girl with her hair cut short in the front and hanging
nearly to her waist in the back, a small kitten with wings and a
funny tail, a long staff with a solar motif at the end -- and repaint
his landscapes. The panther thinks his painting is boring and always
tries to distract him.

The thing he likes the
best in his rooms was a lamp that is shaped like a glass bubble with
a white and black feather captured in the center. He stands under it
and watches the steady pulsing glow it gives out. Even the fairy and
the panther like it.

Sometimes there is a
knock at the door and a voice calls to him, saying, let me in, let me
in!

But he remembers the
story of the wolf and the goat kids and he stays silent. Child, says
the voice in sweet tones, dear child, let me in. I saved you. Let me
in.

He stays silent and the
voice goes away.

There was a woman who
told him to do that. He doesn't remember how she came but she looked
at him through a haze of sweet smoke and said, You have a wish.

"Yes," he
said.

I will grant you your
wish, for a price.

Little sleepy panther
cub and little half-winged sleepy fairy, suddenly in his arms. He
didn't realize what he wished for until he found them.

Your price, said the
woman.

"Take what you
want," he said.

It is only a little
thing, she said.

(this is the nightmare:
he is crouched in an empty house and there is a girl there with her
face as white as paper, staring at him with horror and loathing.
there is a boy lying too quietly on the floor, his body half-covering
another girl. the girl on the floor is not moving. she's not moving.

no, he thinks. no no no
--)

One day he wakes up and
he realizes he is in a tower. It puzzles him for a second. Then he
realizes that he is like the princess who was locked up for nine
years in a tower with her maid, while her country fell into ruins
around her. The thought amuses him briefly, for what country does he
have? He has three rooms and a panther and a little fairy dressed in
pink.

He doesn't know why he
knows he's in a tower now. He watches the panther pace restlessly,
sniffing at the floor and growling deeply. The fairy clings close to
him. He listens closely. There are sounds below him, like something
horrible coming from the floor.

He sits on the floor
with his arms around the panther, listening as the sounds change and
retreat and advance. Someone is coming.

(you meant to help her,
says the girl. i know it.

i -- he begins and she
looks at him for a long minute.

she forgives you, she
says. her face is quite composed. she always forgives everyone.

no, he thinks, no no
no)

The monsters are coming
to get him and the only things that are real in his tower now, his
stately chalk tower, are the panther and the fairy and the beautiful
feather lamp. He listens as footsteps make their way up. It's not
that he's frightened. It's just that the tower is crumbling around
him as those light footsteps trip their way up to his rooms. The
paintings are crumbling and he sees, underneath the lying pictures of
his false world, the other pictures of the girl and the kitten with
the corkscrew tail. They look happy now, not as if they were glad his
world was crumbling but as if they were only waiting for him to
realize they were there. They are waiting for him after the tower
falls.

The panther pushes his
head against his chin, a hard silky weight. The little fairy clings
closer. The footsteps come closer. The tower crumbles around him.

He remembers. He
remembers the girl that he meant to help. He had loved her as his own
daughter. And he had killed her, as surely as if he had cast a spell
and caught her in the heart. He remembers the girl with the white
face. He remembers breaking his staff. He remembers.

He waits.

A door opens slowly and
a girl stumbles in. Her face is red and blotchy with tears and he
sees that her arms and legs are cut and scratched. Her golden red
hair is tangled and dirty. He wishes for a second he could put her in
a safe place, like the one he had before she brought it to ruin.

"Hello, dear
Sakura," he says, with the fairy clinging to his neck, and his
arms around his panther. "I've been waiting for you."

THIS IS ALL EVE'S FAULT

Originally there was
some nonsense about Eriol being Kamui and Kotori's son but I thought
it would be more effective if it were a Kyrielle-type universe.
(Kyrielle is a reeeeally old CCS fic I did that involved Sakura
failing the Judgement with Yue and losing her memories. No, for
serious. LOOK I WAS NINETEEN, CUT ME A LITTLE SLACK.) So Eve, who is clearly insane, will do
the crazy X/TRC/CCS version.

i think what actually
happened was that that particular Sakura attempted the trials and
died a horrible sudden death because she wasn't able to handle the
magic, and Syaoran died a horrible sudden death trying to protect
her. I don't think Tomoyo killed herself.

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